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Correction, or at least dispute. I don't think the movie has any real Christian overtones. Nor do I think the rainbow to hell (or hel) is homophobia. As far as I could tell, the rainbow flag didn't become an LGBT symbol until 1978. Since this movie came out five years later, I don't know that it would be common knowledge to associate a rainbow with being gay (particularly if you're a very weird writer-director from Italy) in the early 80s the way it would be by the 90s. I think it's more likely a reference to Iris, one of the messenger gods who if I recall correctly traveled on a rainbow. Also, the word Hell has become Christian, but I think this is more of the writer misremembering Greek Mythology. In Greek mythology, if you're awesome you go to the Elysian Fields and if you were bad you go to Hades. Hel is from Norse mythology. There's a goddess named Hel, who presides over Hel where cowards and shitty people go. If you're awesome you go Valhalla and I think there was also some middle ground for people who were okay, but not heroic enough for Valhalla. So this is mixing of mythology. Incidentally, Jesus never talks about Hell in the bible. He uses Gehenna (where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth), which was also the name of the place in Jerusalem where they burned trash.

As a life long Greek mythology nerd I have to say this film was wild. I think my favorite ( ie I could enjoy and not want to yell at the screen about it being incorrect because I 'm *THAT* nerd. Harry Potter movies are a real experience with me let's just say...) Was that they turned Daedalus into a fun campy Martian lady with a fondness for automatons that look like you can buy them at Toys R Us. An improvement on the eventually bitter and cruel inventor of the Labyrinth. not that I wouldn't be bitter if I was forced to make my queen a cow fuck suit so she could seduce a bull them have to build, and eventually be imprisoned because of building, a deadly labyrinth for her monstrous child, only to escape but to have my son son die in the process in part due to my invention. I don't think I would murder my nephew because I couldn't bare the thought of having someone else be as clever as me but you know we all grieve differently. Martian Lady is much more fun.

I definitely agree with you about mood over plot. The movies with some of the strongest impressions on me get to me in a way I can't describe, in a visceral way. I've always described this as a rhythm thing like you're in sync with the movie or you're not. And sometimes that doesn't translate to other people. It's the difference between "yeah, 2001 is a good movie" and "no, it was a religious experience". That said, I don't get that for Vertigo. I didn't rewatch it this week and it's honestly been a very long time since the last time I saw it. I like it just fine but I don't get its current status as the greatest movie ever. I'd keep it on the list but it's nowhere near the top for me. If you're into mood over plot, I wholeheartedly recommend Wong Kar Wai movies. In The Mood For Love in particular, but Days Of Being Wild and Chungking Express are both fantastic as well.

So of the two who do you think would win in a choir off: The Fighting Temptations of the choir from Joyful Noise? I mean on the one hand Beyonce ....but on the other Dolly. Fudging. Parton

Correction: Pandora's Jar was, indeed, a jar. 'Box' is a 16th century mistranslation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora%27s_box#Etymology_of_the_%22box%22

Hades is the God of the underworld and has become synonymous with his domain You would be judged by a council of three dead kings who were the judges of the dead, Aeacus, Minos, and Rhadamanthus. ( why they let fucking Minos on the tribunal I will never understand) If you were truly evil you wound up in the worst part of the underworld Tartarus. (It should be noted that the very ancient Greeks actually viewed Tartarus as something much different than what the later classical Greeks did. To them it was a place apart from Hades and underneath it . It was the exclusive jail of the Titans ) . There you would find classic punishments such as Tantulus stuck in a pool of water with a fruit tree hanging just above him that are both always out of his grasp ( He dared host the gods and then tricked them into eating human flesh). But on the whole most people ended up in the bland Fields of Asphodel where your shade just floats around aimlessly for all eternity. This of course assumes you were given the proper burial rights and had been given money to give to be ferried across the river Styx. If you didn't your shade would be forced to haunt the bank of the river for eternity. They could also return to earth and haunt people until they were properly buried. But on the whole the shades had very little substance to them and needed to have a blood sacrifice to help them be more present because as mentioned the Fields of Asphodel kind of dulled their senses so they were just mindless wisps. Not sure if that applies to the dead who weren't buried right through? I get the sense that the Greeks feared the dead but not TOO much.

She tells him at one point that “fighting temptation makes you strong.” Everyone in the movie seemed to be fighting temptation of some sort - whether that be avarice, covetousness, pride, etc. I think the name, like their final song, was just to acknowledge that nobody’s perfect, but as long as you’re trying your best, you’re going to be God-loved. It’s a weird thing in churches - which I think the movie portrays pretty well - that they often expect you to be perfect in order to attend church rather attend church in an effort to become perfect. It’s the kind of hypocrisy that not only drives people away, but gives the excuse to sometimes look down on people (e.g. “I don’t like homosexuality. I go to church, which makes me perfect, which means I’m right and I don’t need to listen to you at all.”) Did anyone else have an issue with them kicking Paulina out of the group at the end? I get that she was awful, but it felt very bully-ish the way the did it, and not very “Christian.” I think it would be far more emotionally satisfying to see her won over to their way of thinking, rather than just kicking her to the curb and showing us over the credits that in the ensuing 18 months they somehow came to some kind of understanding.

Speaking of local planetariums My high school had a planetarium built into it. I guess at one point astronomy was a class you could take, but eventually they couldn’t find someone to run the machine so it was only used once in a while. I only got to use it once in Spanish class when we learned about the Mayan calendar

The whole reason Hercules is NAMED Hercules was to appease Hera. Hercules is the Roman version of his name which is really Heraklês. Like " Sorry your husband raped me please don't torture me or my child! Here we named him for you please just have a little mercy!! " He seems to be her most hated of Zeus's offspring. Like she just SNAPPED when it came to him. She started attacking him while he was still in the womb by delaying his birth so he misses out on Zeus's decree that the next male child born that day will be lord over everything or something. She makes sure another child is born prematurely as well and them Hercules had to serve him. Then while he's an infant she sends to snakes to kill him. Like girl. Maybe chill a wee bit? Of course she drives him mad and he murders his wife and children... As you do. Extra awkward that when he becomes a God he ended up marrying her daughter Hebe (his third wife. his second one accidentally killed him. Who among us hasn't believed the evil centaur who kidnapped us and tried to assult us when he says his blood will save your marriage from infidelity! I exclusively take marriage advice and love potions ONLY in this scenario! Dr. Phil who?!) I wonder how dinner with the in laws works in that family. Granted it's a giant incest knot of relations so it's gonna be awkward. Also Bubo the owl is EVERYTHING And I still have a crush on Callisto from Xena. She deserved a more interesting Xena like redemption than becoming an angel and all that insanity.

I used to read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology book as a kid, and while I mostly remember Callisto as the villainess on Xena, I feel like every lady Zeus “fell in love with” was then turned into horrible things by him or other gods. They would always blame it on Hera and even as a kid I was like, “he needs to stop fucking all these ladies because TERRIBLE things always happen, doesn’t he care???” like what happened to Herc’s mom? Lemme look it up. Oh look Zeus pretended to be her husband, so he raped her. And then she got turned to stone or something? https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Alcmene/alcmene.html People who be.ieved this trash created the pillars of our society. Siiigh. Eta: Regarding, automatons, there was a robot owl in “Clash of the Titans” og version. I remember because I wanted one. Eta2: in response to Paul’s question about who is “my” Hercules. I think Lou Ferrigno looks more like the Hercules we see in art, but Ryan Gosling was a great Young Hercules. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169516/

While we are shouting into the wind tunnel that is inaccuracies in Greek mythology his name is Heracles not Hercules. Hercules is his Romanized name.

While I don't count Vertigo among history's greatest plots, I think it deserves its spot on the AFI list for direction/cinematography alone. Watching it for the first time, there were so many moments that I had to rewind just to marvel at what seems like an impossible amount of beauty captured on screen. And this video gave me an even greater appreciation for Hitchcock's amazingly intricate choreography.

So the ancient Greeks actually had myths about automatons aka robots. https://www.theoi.com/Ther/Automotones.html This is a great list of several of them ( I might read this site for fun when bored). Almost all the Automatons were built by the God of the Forge Hephaestus or have been attributed to the creator of the Labyrinth Daedalus. During Jason and the Argonauts they come up against Talos a bronze man who was made by Hephaestus to protect Crete. There's the fire breathing horses He made for some of his son's that are called the Horses of the Cabeiri, as well as fire breathing bronze bulls Jason has to use to plow a field to plant Dragon teeth that turn into skeleton warriors. ( As you do). He also made the eagle that eats Prometheus's liver every day. (I always thought that was a live eagle not one made of bronze) On a lighter note Hephaestus made the Golden Celedones who were gold singing women for the temple of Delphi . He also built what has basically sets of table roombas called Golden Tripods that wheeled themselves around Olympus during feasts whenever gods wanted them. Because it's got to be hard to get cater waiters on Mount Olympus. I did a quick Google search and it also looks like there were some automatons in Greek history as well. Notably there was a steam powered pigeon made by the Greek philosopher/ mathematician Archytas.

I think it was more - I didn't connect to this movie the first time I saw it, but since everyone says it's good, I'll give it multiple viewings, and try to appreciate what it is other people are seeing in it. Which I don't think is inherently an insult. It's a rumination on acclaim and how it affects how we interact with movies that I've posted on these forums myself. And I think in relation to talking about Vertigo in a previous thread, as well. I've still yet to find my connection to Vertigo that's clarifies to me at least why so many other people love it. But because it's the very top of the critics Sight & Sound poll, I want to give it at least a couple more tries (and I'm not talking about even loving it myself, I just want more of an emotional sense of, "yeah," I can see why people love this movie). Note - I still haven't rewatched yet for this episode. Hoping to squeeze it into Memorial Day weekend stuff.

The thing with Pandora's could've turned into an Abbott and Costello routine: "OK, so we have Pandora's Box." "Actually, it's a jar." "Well, not yet, it starts closed, but eventually it's ajar: That's how the evil escapes."

I mean I guess if the town was small enough and the church was THE social place it could happen if they decided she wasn't welcome in the church. I'm just confused because now I want to know if the entire congregation is banned from listening to secular music? Like is this the most Christian town ever??

So in this version of the Hercules story I feel like they cut out the fact he is a demigod! Instead they have Zeus imbue a fully mortal baby who has 2 mortal parents with the powers of a god. Ademigod has one godly parent, usually Zeus because he can't keep his dick in his toga. Christ of the 12 Olympians 7 are his kids and 5 of THEM are the result of infidelity.

I haven’t listened yet bu I hope they redo Little Italy in Toronto.

This is a case where the terrible film was actually right and the podcast was wrong. It actually is "Pandora's jar". The wikipedia page has a section on why we say box: Also, regarding the movie getting myths confused, there is a precedent for rainbow bridges, but not in Greek myth. Norse mythology has a rainbow bridge connecting Earth and where the gods live.

Getting into a character's mind state is something I think Paul Thomas Anderson is trying to do more and more with his recent work. The Master and Inherent Vice felt like he wanted the audience feel everything the character felt. I guess that's what every movie tries but it feels like it's trying to br more personal somehow with Paul Thomas Anderson.

as always, check out these wonderful pieces at https://www.unspooledart.com

I wish there was more action with Baby Hercules. He was a better actor than Lou Ferrigno.

Cool I will I've been thinking about this all some more. I wanted to add, there's certainly a class of movies that are too much mood. There still needs to be some sort of coherence behind it, I think. But yea rhythm is a good way to think of it, I like that. I told this story during 2001, because somehow we had gotten on to James Joyce. But my brother was a minor Joyce scholar, and I always remember him saying to people who struggle reading Ulysses as "too hard": "just read it." It's not necessary to follow every paragraph. It's not necessary to get bogged down in not knowing every reference. Just let it wash over you and keep going and you should fall into its rhythm. And when you do, it's worth it. It's a book to experience. I do agree that Vertigo maybe isn't quite that level (though I believe 2001 is). There is a story here and it's pretty interesting and it's not nearly as ambiguous as 2001; the point isn't to ignore that. But I think it's a film about Ferguson's mental state, above all. And it sure does succeed in getting that across.

I'm realizing this is my favoritest type of movie: the one less concerned with concrete plot mechanics and more with a cinematic emotional experience. This goes for stuff on the list (2001, say) and not (e.g., a Rushmore which is more of a mood piece than people realize). They don't have to be sad emotion, just mood emotion, films you let wash over you as an experience. I'm left wondering about a lot after seeing Vertigo for the first time since 1996, sure, but that's what the best movies do - stick in your brain and make you work for it. Amy said something like she was 'willing herself to find reasons to like it' and it sounded like a knock, a bit of an insult, but for me, that's what I want a movie to make me do: to search for its center, and its greatness. Greatness doesn't have to be evident to everyone immediately, and just maybe... it shouldn't either. This is how I feel more connected to these top-of-the-list movies - they are true experiential pieces of art and not just 'a cool story I'm watching.' The ones that hit me like this will be in my top-10 in 50 weeks. I do shuffle my list around a bit all the time as I continue to think, but I feel safe in saying these moodier pieces like Vertigo and 2001 will still be there then.